posted by: alphabravocharlie on October 12, 2017 9:16am

Back to the future. There were hundreds of “Red Boxes” throughout the City back in the day but there were removed for monetary reasons. While there are now wi-fi enabled emergency phones, all require a power source and many require phone lines. There are maintenance issues as well. Since cell phones are ubiquitous, why not investigate a system which people could subscribe to. I’ll bet local companies like See Click Fix or Graywall could come up with something good.

posted by: Realmom21 on October 12, 2017 10:36am

KUDDOSS and praise to the residents and management team for using resources for the betterment of all not for the egos of a few like another district that wants to waste valuable dollars on flags when the city is working on a deficit and many are going without thru out the community. This is something above and beyond positive

posted by: Realmom21 on October 12, 2017 1:31pm

@alphabravocharlie…the city cant squabble about the cost of blue lights, red boxes etc when they are volunteering our resources to put free WiFi throughout downtown. This isnt something we should even have to ask for. they have lessened the number of persons in fire stations where people often run to for help. There are few officers walking beats that see and know what is going on so investing in an emergency provision seems like common sense. Maybe if they werent spending money on someone hand holding political officials to the hair salon and dentist appointments etc, or elected and appointed officials jet setting around on the tax payers dime to say they are part of committees that havent benefited the city ever or fighting among-st themselves over whether a contractor is qualified to do a job they were chosen to do and now they dont like the answers they are getting so we pay and dont utilize the service, pay out for lawsuits that could have been settled or negotiated if there wasn’t so much ego in the room when negotiations started or better yet stop buying out contracts of unqualified people. we have spent millions in three short years at the pd and boe on incompetency at the top.

posted by: alphabravocharlie on October 12, 2017 1:53pm

That’s why they were removed years ago. They didn’t want to pay for phone lines. I can see putting them in public parks or other high traffic areas, but this is old technology.

posted by: Ozzie on October 12, 2017 5:40pm

ABC is partially correct that the Red Boxes were removed for monetary reasons. But the main reason they were removed back in the early 1990’s was because the new Police Chief Nick Pastore wanted to cut down on calls for police service and show a reduction in crime as he instituted his Community Based Policing . You have to remember that cell phones were not that available as they are now and a lot of inner city folks didn’t have house phones. So therefore they had no way to call the Police for say minor incidents. Pastore also changed the way calls for service were handled and officers were only given case numbers when a report was written. For example 137,000 people call for police service in a year but only 75,000 reports are written then only 75,000 Case Numbers for the year, get it smoke and mirrors !! Some of the strategies he implemented back then are still being used today at Comp Stat meetings where District managers are encouraged to lower their numbers. For example that burglary you had in your district wasn’t really a burglary it was a theft from residence, lower crime classification !

posted by: Colin Ryan on October 12, 2017 6:11pm

It would be good if some information could be provided as to how often the Yale blue phones are used. Or how often potential callers report not being able to reach 911 due to a lack of access to a phone. Or even how much each phone costs, which is rather vague in the article. It sounds like the phones could be a good addition but more data would be helpful to make a judgement if the cost is justified.